RIP My Linux Install

I’ve been mostly running ubuntu in a Parallels VM on my Macbook. It’s worked well for the last number of years. However, now… well, it’s a combination of drivers and just other accumulated issues.

Basically, the short of it is that my linux install still works, kinda-sorta, but it’s buggy as all get out and randomly crashes and is constantly reporting errors in itself, steam, and various random programs.

This VM was perfectly capable of running Release Raptor, at least at a low framerate with a lot of quality settings off. It also ran a much earlier build of AI War 2.

However, now it literally gives a blue screen in the window that unity pops up when I try to start AI War 2. I think that this is because my VM is so hosed in general, and also because it’s running an older version of ubuntu than unity now supports… and which I can’t upgrade from due to lack of virtual disk space.

All of which is to say, while we DO have “day one alpha” linux support in the game, as promised, I am not presently sure if it works at all. I’m tired of VMs, and I work pretty much exclusively on laptops these days, so what I’ve decided to do is order a new Oryx Pro from system76, with ubuntu natively installed.

All my other machines are MSI, Asus, or Alienware at present, aside from my mac and a trio of old desktop machines in my attic. I don’t have room to run a bunch of desktop towers in my office, though, which is why I went the VM route in the first place.

I looked into getting ubuntu on my existing laptops, but it’s just one of those things that is so fraught because of lack of driver support from those vendors in a lot of cases (shakes fist). Trying to test the game on those would involve hours of actually setting up the ubuntu install, possibly corrupting my master boot records (thanks, Windows 10), and possibly still having a steaming mess of unsupported hardware.

I figured I should Do This Right, instead. The bad news? It may be another two weeks before that new linux machine actually reaches me. So if linux works out of the gate for you during alpha, then I’ll be overjoyed and that’s a relief. If there are problems, I can try to use your error messages to figure out what is up, but most likely I’ll need to have my own linux box before I can really get into it if it’s something complicated.

Hopefully it just works. But you know how that sort of thing can go.

I apologize for not being more on top of the linux build from the start, but it WAS working and it hadn’t occurred to me to test it lately and find that it was suddenly not. The way it dies instantly pretty much guarantees that it’s missing something in my particular install, and not our code doing something that breaks linux. My worry is more that if you get past the first issue on your machine (having a non-broken install and all that), that you’ll instead run into something that’s broken in my part of the code.

Anyway, teething pains. Apologies again if it doesn’t work day 1, and fingers crossed that it will.

2 Replies to “RIP My Linux Install”

Ooh, good news from system76 — my linux laptop will be here by the end of the day on this Thursday, the 2nd. So that’s extremely good news if there’s anything funky going on early on in with the linux builds. That’s a relief on my end. 🙂